As it was, the gloom suited him well. Their dark clothes, braided jackets, tsantas and jackboots looked genuine enough, Mallory knew, and the black-fringed turbans Louki had mysteriously obtained for them looked as they ought to look in a tavern where every islander there about eight of them wore nothing else on their heads. Their clothes had been good enough to pass muster with the tavernaris--but then even the keeper of a wine shop could hardly be expected to know every man in a town of five thousand, and a patriotic Greek, as Louki had declared this man to be, wasn't going to lift even a faintly suspicious eyebrow as long as there were German soldiers present. And there were Germans present four of them, sitting round a table near the counter. Which was why Mallory had been glad of the semi-darkness. Not, he was certain, that he and Dusty Miller had any reason to be physically afraid of these men. Louki had dismissed them contemptuously as a bunch of old women headquarters clerks, Mallory guessed who came to this tavern every night of the week. But there was no point in sticking out their necks unnecessarily.
Miller lit one of the pungent, evil-smelling local cigarettes, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
Damn' funny smell in this joint, boss.
Put your cigarette out, Mallory suggested.
You wouldn't believe it, but the smell I'm smelling is a damn' sight worse than that.
Hashish, Mallory said briefly. The curse of these island ports. He nodded over towards a dark corner. The lads of the village over there will be at it every night in life. It's all they live for.
Do they have to make that gawddamned awful racket when they're at it? Miller asked peevishly. Toscanini should see this lot!
Mallory looked at the small group in the corner, clustered round the young man playing a bouzouko--a long-necked mandolin and singing the haunting, nostalgic rembetika songs of the hashish smokers of the Piraeus. He supposed the music did have a certain melancholy, lotus-land attraction, but right then it jarred on him. One had to be in a certain twi-lit, untroubled mood to appreciate that sort of thing; and he had never felt less untroubled in his life.
I suppose it is a bit grim, he admitted. But at least it lets us talk together, which we couldn't do if they all packed up and went home.
I wish to hell they would, Miller said morosely. I'd gladly keep my mouth shut. He picked distastefully at the meze--a mixture of chopped olives, liver, cheese and apples on the plate before him; as a good American and a bourbon drinker of long standing he disapproved strongly of the invariable Greek custom of eating when drinking. Suddenly he looked up and crushed his cigarette against the table top. For Gawd's sake, boss, how much longer?
Mallory looked at him, then looked away. He knew exactly how Dusty Miller felt, for he felt that way himself tense, keyed-up, every nerve strung to the tautest pitch of efficiency. So much depended on the next few minutes; whether all their labour and their suffering had been necessary, whether the men on Kheros would live or die, whether Andy Stevens had lived and died in vain. Mallory looked at Miller again, saw the nervous hands, the deepened wrinkles round the eyes, the tightly compressed mouth, white at the outer corners, saw all these signs of strain, noted them and discounted them. Excepting Andrea alone, of all the men he had ever known he would have picked the lean, morose American to be his companion that night. Or maybe even including Andrea. The finest saboteur in southern Europe Captain Jensen had called him back in Alexandria. Miller had come a long way from Alexandria, and he had come for this alone. To-night was Miller's night.
Mallory looked at his watch.
Curfew in fifteen minutes, he said quietly. The balloon goes up in twelve minutes. For us, another four minutes to go.
Miller nodded, but said nothing. He filled his glass again from the beaker in the middle of the table, lit a cigarette. Mallory could see a nerve twitching high up in his temple and wondered dryly how many twitching nerves Miller could see in his own face. He wondered, too, how the crippled Casey Brown was getting on in the house they had just left. In many ways he had the most responsible job of all and at the critical moment he would have to leave the door unguarded, move back to the balcony. One slip up there . He saw Miller look strangely at him and grinned crookedly. This had to come off, it just had to: he thought of what must surely happen if he failed, then shied away from the thought. It wasn't good to think of these things, not now, not at this time.
He wondered if the other two were at their posts, unmolested; they should be, the search party had long passed through the upper part of the town; but you never knew what could go wrong, there was so much that could go wrong, and so easily. Mallory looked at his watch again: he had never seen a second hand move so slowly. He lit a last cigarette, poured a final glass of wine, listened without really hearing to the weird, keening threnody of the rembetika song in the corner. And then the song of the hashish singers died plaintively away, the glasses were empty and Mallory was on his feet.
Time bringeth all things, he murmured. Here we go again.
He sauntered easily towards the door, calling good night to the tavernaris. Just at the doorway he paused, began to search impatiently through his pockets as if he had lost something: it was a windless night, and it was raining, he saw, raining heavily, the lances of rain bouncing inches off the cobbled street and the street itself was deserted as far as he could see in either direction. Satisfied, Mallory swung round with a curse, forehead furrowed in exasperation, started to walk back towards the table he had just left, right hand now delving into the capacious inner pocket of his jacket. He saw without seeming to that Dusty Miller was pushing his chair back, rising to his feet. And then Mallory bad halted, his face clearing and his hands no longer searching. He was exactly three feet from the table where the four Germans were sitting.
Keep quite still! He spoke in German, his voice low but as steady, as menacing, as the Navy Colt .455 balanced in his right hand. We are desperate men. If you move we will kill you.
For a full, three seconds the soldiers sat immobile, expressionless except for the shocked widening of their eyes. And then there was a quick flicker of the eyelids from the man sitting nearest the counter, a twitching of the shoulder and then a grunt of agonyas the .32 bullet smashed into his upper arm. The soft thud of Miller's silenced automatic couldn't have been heard beyond the doorway.
Sorry, boss, Miller apologised. Mebbe be's only sufferin' from St. Vitus' Dance. He looked with interest at the pain-twisted face, the blood welling darkly be.. tween the fingers clasped tightly over the wound. But he looks kinda cured to me.
He is cured, Mallory said grimly. He turned to the inn-keeper, a tall, melancholy man with a thin face and mandarin moustache that drooped forlornly over either corner of his mouth, spoke to him in the quick, colloquial speech of the islands. Do these men speak Greek?